John McEwen

John McEwen (29 March 1900-20 November 1980) was Prime Minister of Australia from 19 December 1967 to 10 January 1968, succeeding Harold Holt and preceding John Gorton. He was a member of the Australian Country Party.

Biography
John McEwen was born in Chiltern, Victoria, Australia in 1900, and he was raised by his grandmother in Wangaratta and Dandenong after being orphaned at the age of 7. He left school at the age of 13 and joined the Australian Army at the age of 18, but World War I ended before his unit shipped out. He went on to settle in Stanhope using the government's soldier settlement scheme, and he became a beef cattle farmer. In 1934, he was elected to the House of Representatives as an Australian Country Party member, and he served as Interior Minister from 1937 to 1939. In 1958, he replaced Arthur Fadden as party leader, and he was an influential figure in Robert Menzies and Harold Holt's Liberal Party of Australia coalition governments. In 1967, he formed a caretaker government as Prime Minister after Holt's death, and he ceded power to John Gorton after just 23 days in office; he then served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1968 to 1971. In 1980, suffering from dermatitis, he starved himself to death.